The capital's authorities continue to introduce driverless technologies into the tram network. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that two driverless tram-laboratories have been added to five routes for testing.
The rides take place with a driver. He controls the movement on routes No. 30, 27, 23, 15 and 31 of the Krasnopresnensk tram network. Sobyanin noted that data is being collected during the journey to create a high-precision route map. This will accurately indicate how the tram should move in a specific direction.
The tram-laboratories are equipped with lidars with a 360-degree view, which see objects at a distance of up to 200 meters and determine their location with an accuracy of up to 2 cm. Public transport also has radars that help driverless transport navigate in poor visibility conditions and assess the speed of other road users. Cameras recognize objects on the road: pedestrians, cars, animals and traffic lights.
A similar high-precision map was created for route No. 10. According to it, the driverless tram traveled more than 4.5 thousand kilometers without violations and transported over 21 thousand passengers. Sobyanin also emphasized that it is planned to equip about two-thirds of the entire capital's tram fleet with driverless technologies by 2030.